In today's Internet Marketing, conversations are cropping up all over the place. People are talking. They are talking about products. They are talking about businesses. And they are certainly talking about their experiences and there brand.
When you look at how blogs, forums and social networking sites have exploded in the last 5 years, you can see how powerful word-of-mouth is. But the question is, is it all really important? Can it really help your business and your branding?
Yes, if you have not got it by now you will when your competitors get a head of you in the worldwide web race. You don't need to be controversial, either. I'm talking creating systems to leverage, manage and profit from the "buzz."
Word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful lead and business generation processes there is. But we know it more as viral marketing but today lets think of is as VIRUS MARKETING.
VIRUS MARKETING is the process of implementing means or tools through which the knowledge of your existence self- propagates. Like a virus, your visibility spreads throughout a network of people who refer you to each other.
Notwithstanding the power of backlinking, traffic and branding yourself, virus marketing is key for a number of reasons. Success in the offline world is location. The Internet is no different. Your success depends highly on the number of locations (Google Real Estate) you appear online - places on which your site, link, company or product name exist.
In essence, to expand your reach, you need to be in as many places as possible, talked about by as many people as possible and be in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
With virus marketing, there are three ways of doing it:
Create content
Create personal branding
Create personal branding systems
The first is self-explanatory. Your content may be controversial virus or buzz. It may create raging fans, followers, subcribers - or nutball enemies.
The second is simple: you create your brand — whether it's a video, blogging, podcasting, software, ebooks, etc - that people can pass around, and thus proliferates the knowledge of your existence on the web through other people's efforts.
My focus is on the third: creating a personal branding system, a virus driven system, aka viral marketing system.
Before I share some examples, let me explain why word-of- mouth works wonders. Those who get to know you or to know about you through a third party grant you a higher level of confidence, credibility and loyalty. This is social proof in action.
In other words, if you tell people you're the best, that you're the leader in your field, or that your product is the best solution to their needs, your self-serving promotional bias makes it all suspect.
However, if someone other than you - whether it's on a blog, in an email, on a social networking site or in person - says to another that you are indeed the best or that you do have the best solution to their problems, how much more believable will that person's statement be? How much more credible and trustworthy?
The answer is "definitely more." So now YOU become a buzz , and you blast out all of the marketing sphere and you get attention.
Accordingly, word-of-mouth is not only important because it creates an awareness of your business , but also it is important to the degree to which third party marketing indirectly communicates greater credibility, superiority and value of the products or services you provide.
People don't buy the best - they only think they do. They usually buy the leader (or what they perceive as being the best). And that perception is often molded by what they are told and by what others do, not by what is fact or by what is being advertised.
Coke, for example, outsells Pepsi. But according to Ries, taste tests reveal that Pepsi is the better tasting brand. So, why does Coke still beat Pepsi in sales? It is not because it is the leader in the marketplace or promoted itself as such but because it is known as the leader. And the reason it is known as the leader is because Coke was the first cola "in the mind" of the marketplace.
It is the one most talked about, even to this day. When a person is introduced to cola for the first time, they are often told to try Coke. Restaurant patrons still ask for "coke," even when Pepsi is the only cola served. Why is that? While other colas are bombarding them with marketing messages, people have heard of Coke first, and most likely from other people.
Consequently, if people hear about you from other people, and not some advertisement or pitch, this social proof will create not only a virusbuzz about you but also an almost instant trustworthiness.
How do you do that? The most significant method is to be the first. If your business or website is unique, focuses on a niche or is the first in some category, the knowledge of your existence will spread quite naturally, almost like wildfire. It becomes virus in and of itself, in other words.
Now, I'm not saying you need to be new. I'm only saying you need to be unique. Or better yet, you need to be the first. Whether it's branding you to a new niche, or adding a new twist to an existing product, you become the first.
Don't be the best, be the first. But more important, "Don't be the first in the marketplace, be the first in the MIND of the marketplace."
No comments:
Post a Comment